One of the biggest surprises of this year’s NAMM show in California was the announcement of a new collaboration between Pioneer DJ and analog synth legend Dave Smith, the Toraiz AS-1 mono synth.
The AS-1 is the second collaboration between the two companies after last year’s Toraiz SP-1 sampler, and uses the same circuits and effects found in Dave Smith’s Prophet-6 synthesizer. However, its compact form is designed to bridge the gap between DJing, production and live performance.
From the outside it looks a lot like Roland’s classic TB-303 bassline synth on steroids, but as FACT found out from Pioneer DJ’s Stuart Murphy at NAMM 2017, it’s designed to be a lot more versatile.
